Contentions

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan recently offended the Occupy Oakland movement by asking police to clear out the parks they were sleeping in, and now she’s desperately trying to make amends.

The Occupiers have planned a citywide strike today, and Mayor Quan agrees that it’s a great idea. And to really hammer home the message to those Oakland establishment types, the mayor is even giving city workers permission to take the day off and join the Occupiers in “shutting the city down.”

All public city workers except for the police, that is. The police union has published an open letter to the mayor, pointing out the obvious contradictions here:

To add to the confusion, the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the “Stop Work” strike scheduled for Wednesday, giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.

That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?

Of course that’s the mayor’s intention. Somebody has to play the Goliath to the protesters’ David in this completely contrived performance. The saddest part of this story is that it completely plays into the Occupiers’ warped view of reality. They simply expect things to be handed to them — money, careers, success — without putting in the effort.

Now they want to shut down a city in protest, and instead of giving them the wakeup call they need, Mayor Quan is doing all she can to make their task as easy as possible. Unfortunately for Quan, this is coming at the expense of city residents who are living in the real world and may not be very forgiving during the next mayoral election.